dog incident

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rabbitgirl

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recently we heard dogs running loose in our yardat night, barking and harrassing the rabbits, apparently--and heard therabbits thumping all the way at the house (the cages are way back inthe woods).

I'm worried about Iz.

what to do???
 
I'd be out therechecking it out! When I was young we had rabbits and dogs got to thecages and ripped right through the wire. Big dogs can rip cage wire toshreds with their claws and teeth. Even if they don't get the rabbitout, the rabbit could have a heart attack or get loose after the dogleaves.

Raspberry
 
I actually didn't know until morning, when Momtold me she'd heard the rabbits. They were all fine (Bub was a littlefried mentally), but Iz is so fragile anyway....

The cages are very high and the run is fenced, plus there are wood boxes to hide in, but it's not fail-safe.

can't keep the dogs away, I don't know where they are coming from!

Any protection ideas?



 
Maybe you should contact animal control. Has ithappened just one time or multiple times. Do you have neighbors closeby? If not, when the dogs come around you should go outside and make aruckus, maybe hose them down. If there's anyway to add extra protectionaround the bun's I would do that too.

Megan
 
It sounds like youhave taken all the right precautions. If it's fenced and the cages areup high, I don't know what else you could do. At least nothing thatwouldn't cost money. My husband is pretty handy. I'd probably have himrun a line out to the pen and put a light up, like the kind on a garagedoor that comes on with movement. Then when the dogs came maybe themotion detector light would scare them off. Maybe it was just a freakincident.

Raspberry
 
What a dilemma!. Bringing them closerwould give you a quicker response time, but even than might not be timeenough. As was mentioned above, buns can have a heart attacksimply from fear, much less an actual attack.

What scares dogs? Gun shot, fire crackers, light(if they'recoming only at night), dog repellent smells, human urine, big caturine...like lion, tiger, puma?Maybe a zoo can offer youideas, or an animal control officer.Bring the rabbits in atnight? Bars on exterior of hutch with hardware cloth attached to theinside of the bars to prevent muzzles from poking in or bunny limbsfrom hanging out, or below. Dogs will also attack frombelow. Belly ache food for Dogs? I'm just trying tothrow out suggestions that may be of some help.

So sorry you've got to deal with that problem. If they areattacking your "livestock," will animal control help you?What about live trapping them in some manner and bringing them to thepound? Nets? Traps made out of culvertpipes and a little "shade tree engineering" suffices to capture roguegrizzly bears in national parks. Heck, a wooden box mightserve to hold a dog captive for a night.

Buck


 
We have coyote here. We can hear themat night behind our property. That is why hubby didn't wantto get a rabbit or rabbits. He didn't expect me to bring onehome and keep it inside :p
 
hi,

I had problems with dogs before. One of our naibors took care of themhe worked for the county and the dogs were harrasing kids too so theyrealy were not safe.

Repellents usauly do not work for dogs as I found out because they justkeep trying to make attempts at the cages. I was offered advice that Ihad to use and it worked. I sawthe dogs get smacked by theones that I layed out around and theyyelped and ran off. Ididnt see them again even though other people still had trouble withthem.The old fashon mouse traps onlymakesurethat youthe bend the spring so that way itsmacks hard but not hard enough to do anything other than a ouch andmaybehang onto them. The traps with the setting that they areat from the store may break a toe on the dog so be sure to bend it. Itscares the dogs off and they usauly dont come back. Just make sure thatit is only hard enough for the dogs to go ouch nothing else.
 
Thanks all. I love the mousetrap idea! Our cagesare strongly bolted (or will be), and the floors are hardware cloth (nofeet sticking thru). In case of attack, they can bolt through a smalldoor into the wood box area.

Although, with winter coming, traps are going to get really buried.....

Rose

P.S. I've also seen fox tracks, but he never tries to get in the cages. Wonder why?
 
Get a pellet gun and nail the dogs, they won't come back because of the smarting they will get.



Ed
 
we live in the city and my aim's not that good. Besides, the neighbor's a cop.....:p

Rose

P.S. did I mention he OWNS two dogs??? :p

 
Actually, thinking about problem dogs, I wasthinking back to another dog incident out by the bunnies. I was feedingthem and looked up to see the biggest dog I've ever seen (a mastiffthis size of a small lion) standing silently outside the run watchingme.

After a moment of panic, I walked out--still not a sound from thebeast--put a hand on his neck, and started walking toward the house. Hewalked right at my side, and kept looking up at me. Did anything I toldhim to, without a sound. Hisfoot wasthe size of myhand!!!

We walked around to the front door and I rang the doorbell. Mom openedit, gave a shriek to wake the dead, slammed it shut, thought "mydaughter's OUTSIDE with that monster!!", opened it a crack to see a bigblack muzzle.....

After some explaining ("I found him, can I keep him???" :p), we put thesilent monster in the porch and called the owners. I sat with him,waiting, and he leaned on me (almost knocked me over). He was literallytwice my weight.

So the biggest dog I ever saw was the biggest pushover! I'm more scared of little dogs!

Rose
 
Being a dog groomer and dealing with differentdogs everyday, I find that the smaller dogs are actually the meanerones....they try to bite and they don't sit still, they're evil lol.

Big dogs rock!! :p I'd take a BullMastiff over a Chihuahua any day.
 
and this may sound funny too, but hanging onto abigger dog for vaccines or nails what have you is easier than holding alil dog... Those lil dogs twist and turn.. they move the right/wrongway and your holding air, bigger dogs have more to hang onto.;)I'll take a pit bull or rotti over a Chihuahua or mini pinany day.
 
Why are the dogs running loose in the city?

If enough of them start getting together they will start acting like apack. Nearby at and old ammunition plant there are loose dogsthat have bred with coyotes. One of the gaurds told me theyare not afraid of humans like the normal coyotes, they will come up toyou. They have cattle to help control the grass and he foundthe dog/coyote pack eating a calf- I wont say the worst part.

PBS had a really good documentary on the history of dogs. A lot of good information and why they act like they do.

Loose running dogs are just a problem waiting to happen.

Ed
 
They shouldn't be loose, you're right. I waslucky the monster was so gentle--the other loose dogs aren't so. It wasan example of a possibly bad situation that turned out ok! I wouldn'tmind him coming back, but the others....:X

Rose
 
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